In late nineteenth New Orleans, eggnog had been a popular drink. “I tremble to think” writes the traveler Abraham Oakey Hall in New Orleans about 1898, “nogs, and soups, and plates o fish, . . . game, . . . and loaves of bread, that I have seen appear from side doors and vanish . . . among the waiting crowds at the long counter; or of the piles of dimes” that barkeepers collected for the eggnog and food.